The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is a research institute

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 based in Tucson, Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

, focusing on planetary science

Planetary science

Planetary science is the scientific study of planets , moons, and planetary systems, in particular those of the Solar System and the processes that form them. It studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, aiming to determine their composition, dynamics, formation,...

.

Founded in 1972 on a non-profit basis, it is involved in many NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 missions, the study of Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

, asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s, comet

Comet

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

s, interplanetary dust, the formation of the Solar System

Formation and evolution of the Solar System

The formation and evolution of the Solar System is estimated to have begun 4.568 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud...

, extrasolar planet

Extrasolar planet

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...

s, the origin of life, and other scientific topics.

It is now actively participating in the Dawn mission, scheduled to explore Vesta

4 Vesta

Vesta, formally designated 4 Vesta, is one of the largest asteroids, with a mean diameter of about . It was discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807, and is named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, Vesta....

 between 2011 and 2012, and Ceres in 2015.

PSI manages the spacecraft's Gamma-Ray and Neutron Detector, which will map the surfaces of the two minor planets to determine how they were formed and evolved.

The Institute's orbit@home

Orbit@home

orbit@home is a BOINC-based distributed computing project of the Planetary Science Institute. It uses the Orbit Reconstruction, Simulation and Analysis framework to optimize the search strategies that are used to find near-earth objects....

 is a distributed computing

Distributed computing

Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...

 project through which the public can help in the search for near-Earth object

Near-Earth object

A near-Earth object is a Solar System object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth. All NEOs have a perihelion distance less than 1.3 AU. They include a few thousand near-Earth asteroids , near-Earth comets, a number of solar-orbiting spacecraft, and meteoroids large enough to...

s.

The Institute is also involved in science education

Science education

Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...

 through school programs, popular science book

Science book

A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking , or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson...

s and art.

Its scientific Staff are distributed in 16 US states and in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Russia and Australia.

Its present director (2009) is Dr. Mark V. Sykes.